Promoting My Business/Interest on the Web Receive a $100 thank you for your published article. Article Library

I've had an interest in computers for a long time. When I worked at a college counseling center, I used secure email to keep in touch with students. I also participated in online discussions of mental health issues. I began surfing the web using Lynx, a text-based browser.

When the World Wide Web became hot I decided to advertise my practice of psychology there. I put up a page (the successor of which can be found at http://netpsychology.com/holmes.htm) describing my practice and my theoretical orientation. I included a list of links to other sites, along with my email address.

I discovered that the Web was not the best way to advertise a local business (although this is changing). I got listed on Yahoo (which had just moved from Stanford University and had no ads). This brought me email from all over, but no new clients for my local practice.

Some of the email which I received asked for information and advice about personal problems. I was not completely comfortable responding because of the incomplete confidentiality of email, and because it established a direct relationship with a person which might make me liable if they act on my advice. I wasn't sure what to do.

After thinking about my dilemma, I began to explore what was out there on the web. Mental health sites were beginning to sprout up, and a few people were offering psychological help for a fee. At most of these sites, you pay by credit card before you ever get any personal contact with a professional.

I thought about how I might continue to provide services to people over the Internet while clearly establishing some guidelines. I also wanted to get reimbursed for some of my time and expenses. I decided to use a technique similar to shareware software publishers. I would offer consultations to people, and they would pay me if they found the interaction helpful.

I explored the ethical implications of this idea and even wrote to the ethics committee of the American Psychological Association to get their opinion. I had been learning HTML, so I decided to design the site myself and to use the free Web space provided by my AOL account to get started.

Rather than invest in a secure server and a merchant account, I simply ask that people mail me a check if they are satisfied with their consultation with me. I opened a post office box to keep this mail separate from other mail.

I decided to use the word "consultation" because it was a model which came naturally to me. In face-to-face work, I see myself as a consultant. You hire me to help you solve a problem in your life.

You are "the boss" and I'm an expert that you bring in to assist you with a particularly difficult problem. We work together to help you solve it. In my "Shareware Consultations" I work in a similar manner. You are hiring me to help you solve a problem.

There are differences, however. I take pains to explain why these consultations are not therapy. The Internet is basically a text medium. You don't know what mood I am in right now. You have no idea how fast or slowly I am talking (or typing). There is not enough information available on this medium to make a diagnosis or to properly treat a mental disorder.

Internet consultations have not made me rich. I average 1-3 email exchanges per week. About half of these pay me. I think that these odds are better than shareware software writers because the person is receiving personal attention and they really do receive value most of the time.

My Shareware Psychological Consultation site has generated other work. I developed a site called NetPsych.com to highlight the online work that many people (including myself) were doing. That site served as a springboard to my Mental Health Resources site on The Mining Company.

The Mining Company was looking for enthusiastic "guides" to form a series of linked websites. This seemed a perfect fit for me. It offered me another opportunity to make mental health resources available to a wide audience. It also offered a potential future income stream at a time when managed care was eating away at my private practice income.

There have been some glitches along the way. The American Psychological Association's attorney wrote me to ask me to quit using the name "netpsych" since they have registered the trademark "PsychNET" for a portion of their own website. After a bit of back and forth I decided that it was better to abandon the trademark than to fight. After conducting a trademark search, I renamed the site NetPsychology.

Where do I go from here? Who knows? Email has already become a common means for real-life clients to stay in touch between sessions. Encryption has become much more convenient with the advent of Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) version 5.0. This development assures that private online email will be available to many more people. The free email software program Eudora Lite has PGP available in an easy-to-use format.

I've made a few mistakes along the way, and I do have some advice for people who want to start their own web-based business:

Do your homework and understand the medium of the Internet. Marketing techniques which work in the real world may flop on the net.

Perform a trademark search before you decide on a domain name. There are resources for this purpose on the Internet, and some services are very reasonably priced.

Don't skimp on your Internet Service Provider. It's fine to start small by using your AOL or ISP account, but the address "barstools.com" will be easier to remember than "http://members.uglynet.com/~kevenp/barstools.htm". A good provider will also give you redundant fast connections to the Internet. If one "backbone" goes down, your site will still be up.

Either hire a professional to design your site or spend some time learning HTML or site design. Tools like Microsoft FrontPage and NetObjects Fusion shield you from the actual HTML and make the process more like word-processing or desktop publishing.

Decide how much money you want to spend in order to get a return on your investment. People create websites for almost no money and others spend thousands of dollars.

Get your site listed with as many search engines and other sites as you can. It is probably worth the expense to use a site which simplifies the process (such as Submit-it ). A simple interface allows easy submissions to multiple sites.

Offer something of genuine value. This can be as simple as a set of links which allow visitors to find helpful information that they might be looking for on your site.

Don't expect to be an overnight success. It will take a while for people to find you.

The main thing that I have learned is that there is no way to predict where the Internet will take you. Planning is important, but opportunities sometimes develop in places where you do not expect them. It is important to be open to these opportunities, and to keep abreast of the changing nature of the Internet.